Andy Chase

Last night I caught most of the VH1 special "KISS: Behind the Makeup". I saw the two hour documentary when it first aired last year, but I felt compelled to watch it again. I'm listening to their debut album, KISS right now and cursing myself for not having found a way to see their reunion tour in 1996, or the Psycho Circus tour a couple of years later.

Cursing myself.

I was a KISS fan by age 3 or 4 (which would have been about 1977-1978) thanks to heavy exposure from my brother and, of course, the bad-ass makeup and costumes. At age 4, I'm sure it was the whole KISS mystique that really spoke to me.

Age 3? It sounds like I'm trying to out-cool classmates on a third grade playground, but I know this to be true because I remember when the four solo albums came out, followed by Dynasty in 1979.

My parents, being the amazingly cool parents they were, bought me KISS 45's and didn't try to derail my fascination with the phenomenon that was KISS in the original, grand manner. My dad liked their music, and I remember many a car trip (when you live in the middle of nowhere, every errand is a car trip) with KISS playing on the tape deck. When I was old enough to pick up on the innuendo that can be found in just about every song, I was a little surprised... but I think my parents (correctly) figured that what I didn't understand wouldn't hurt me. All I knew was that I was fascinated (and a little bit scared) by those four other-worldly characters who were clearly human (you could see the skin of their necks, hands, chests, etc) but maybe not. Not to a four year old, anyway. I couldn't believe it when 3-2-1 Contact did a segment about a KISS concert, including the only concert footage I had ever seen of the group. It was everything the photos from Alive: II promised, and all too short.

In early 1983 my dad took my brother and I to see Kiss at the Worcester Centrum, when they were on the Creatures of the Night tour. This was after Ace Frehley had left the band, and long after Peter Criss (My original favorite, probably because the cat makeup was the least frightening) had left; Eric Carr was on drums in the Fox makeup, and Vinnie Vincent was on guitar with that goofy Ankh face. I remember being disappointed even back then at having missed the original act, and a tiny bit of the mystique was taken away when I watched a stagehand put a swatch of carpet under Gene Simmons right before he did his blood-spitting act. I don't think there were any pyrotechnics, either, what with the Centrum being an enclosed auditorium. Still, it was KISS, and one hell of a first rock concert for a 10 year old.

It was also in 1983 that I bought a used copy of Destroyer from a classmate acting as agent for his older sister. It was the source of much derision among my classmates, though maybe not quite as much as the time I proudly brought my copy of Deep Purple's Made in Europe in for show and tell.

When KISS abandoned the makeup, it was like seeing Darth Vader without his helmet at the end of Return of the Jedi... unfortunately, much of their hard rock sensibility disappeared with the makeup. KISS soldiered on into high-80's pretty-boy glamdom and left their one of a kind stage presence behind. I received a copy of Lick it Up for Christmas in 1983, and that's still the most recent KISS recording I own... the singles that came and went in the 80's and 90's were sad reminders of what once was.

I never stopped listening to the classics, though. As much as I've gone on and on about the theatrical aspect of the band, KISS was also a balls to the wall rock & roll band. When I started playing guitar in 8th grade, Ace Frehley was my guitar god, and retains a high seat in my guitar god pantheon to this day - he may not be as technically proficient as someone like Steve Morse, but his style is inimitable.

Even through high school and college, I never encountered anyone my age who would admit to being a classic KISS fan... the further away the 70's got, the less cool it was to admit to having liked them. Imagine my surprise when, in 1996, it was suddenly hip to like the good old KISS in makeup again. The reunion tour was literally a dream come true, but being fresh out of college and earning $300 a week in Los Angeles, there was no way I could justify the cost of a ticket at the time. Still... I should have eaten ramen that month and just bought a ticket.